The
postwar history of small islands has been marked by two favorable development
factors: the march of decolonization and the global spread of international
tourism.In the first case, since 1960
roughly 30 tropical/temperate islands across the five major oceanic basins have
become politically independent (McElroy and Mahoney, 2000).Other island territories have achieved
significantly greater internal self-government and have used this new-found
autonomy—the so called “resource of jurisdiction”—to create tax havens and
diversify into other nontraditional activities like off-shore finance and ship
registry (Baldacchino and Milne, 2000).In the second case, the remarkable transformation of tourism into the
world’s largest industry—accounting for roughly a tenth of global GDP,
employment and capital formation (WTTC, 2001)—has coincided with the
restructuring of small island economies away from traditional exports like
sugar and copra toward mass tourism and related construction.The results have transformed insular
landscapes across the Caribbean, Mediterranean and North Pacific and created
the so-called “Pleasure Periphery” of North America, Europe and Japan
respectively (Turner and Ash, 1976).

(a) The Problem

However,
much of this growth has been overly rapid, unplanned and intrusive and has damaged
insular eco-systems (Briguglio and others, 1996).In the Caribbean, tourism expansion has directly or indirectly
caused deforestation and erosion of upland forests for condominium developments
and road works, as well as beach loss, lagoon pollution and reef damage from
sand mining, dredging and boat anchoring (McElroy and de Albuquerque,
1998).Nearly 30 percent of the reefs
are at high risk because of runoff and discharges of untreated municipal and
hotel waste and pollution from pleasure yachts and cruise ships (Bryant and
others, 1998).Partly as a result,
since 1985 fish catches are off nearly 50 percent in gross tonnage (UNEP,
1999b).

In
the Mediterranean, large-scale coastal hotel/marina and infrastructure
construction has filled in salt ponds, disfigured shorelines, and polluted
nearshore waters with sewage (Pearce, 1989).In highly developed islands like Balearics and Malta, tourism has been
associated with the rapid decline of traditional pursuits and renewable
resource uses, the rise of realty inflation (Beller and others, 1990), and
paralyzing summer crowding and other sociocultural intrusions that threaten
insular lifestyles and identity (Lanfant and others, 1995).In developing Indian Ocean islands, the
situation is similar.Tourism along
with unplanned urbanization is associated with sand mining, mangrove
destruction and coastal pollution.Mauritius and Seychelles are ranked second and third in the world in
terms of endangered native plant species (UNEP, 1999a), and some beach-based
resorts are under threat from sea level rise.

The
Pacific, in transition from subsistence to a cash economy, is undergoing
substantial threats from commercial agriculture and fishing, logging and
coastal tourist development.In popular
resort areas delicate mangroves have been harvested for construction material
and reefs scarred by trampling and collecting by tourists (Lobban and Schefter,
1997).Development on Guam has been
compared to suburban Los Angeles, and even the Galapagos has allegedly been overrun
by excessive visitation (Lindberg and Hawkins, 1996).As a result of these forces of modernization, the region boasts
the largest number of bird extinctions in the world, and seven times more
endangered species than the Caribbean (UNEP, 1999a).

Since
tourism’s biocultural base is in decline across the island world, and because
of the continued pressures from increased globalization expected for the future
(UNEP, 2002), researchers have called for greener, lower-density tourism styles
and begun to explore the causes of this policy failure.A variety of structural and institutional
factors have been suggested (McElroy, 2002): the disequilibrium between a
large-scale consumption-based international tourist economy imposed upon a
small island ecology; island policy makers’ preoccupation with raising visitor
numbers instead of net expenditure; tourism’s asymmetrical dynamics whereby
linear economic benefits are mismatched with non-linear socio-environmental
costs; and the absence of a comprehensive measure of overall tourism impact,
i.e. an early warning signal to broadly assess the approach of potentially
dangerous socio-environmental thresholds.

(b) Scope

This
paper develops such an early warning signal, the so-called Tourism Penetration
Index (TPI), and applies it to a cross-section of some 51 small islands.Whereas most impact studies have employed
separate, uni-dimensional measures of tourism impact on the economy, the
society, the environment, the TPI integrates all three into a single
measure.The theoretical backdrop for
interpreting the results is taken loosely from Butler’s (1980) tourism area
life cycle model—a variant of the familiar product life cycle in marketing
literature--whereby destinations over time pass through predictable stages of emergence,
growth, maturity and decline.Recent
applications to the Caribbean (McElroy and de Albuquerque, 1998) and beyond
(McElroy and Olazarri, 1997; McElroy, 2002) suggest the TPI is a useful first
approximation of overall tourism impact.The paper concludes with a summary of the planning challenges
appropriate for each stage of tourist development, a discussion of the
limitations of the index, and suggestions for further research.

2.METHODOLOGY

The Tourism Penetration Index (TPI) was constructed
in three steps.First, the variables
were selected to measure tourism development across the three impact
dimensions: per capita visitor spending to measure economic impact, average
daily visitor density to measure socio-cultural impact, and rooms per square
kilometer of area to measure environmental impact.Second, standardized indices based on these variables were
calculated by taking the value of each variable for each destination,
subtracting the minimum of that value for the whole sample, and then dividing
the result by the sample maximum minus the sample minimum according to the
formula: (X-Xmin)/(Xmax-Xmin).Third,
the overall TPI scores were calculated as the unweighted average of the three
standardized impact indices.

To operationalize
the index, a sample was selected of 51 small islands of roughly one million
population or less for which complete data were available.This data constraint excluded a number of
small non-sovereign islands like Azores, Balearics, Faroes, Madeira, Mayotte,
Wallis and Fortuna and others.To
ensure uniformity, all data were taken from standard sources: the tourism data
from the Compendium of Tourism Statistics (WTO, 2001), and the
population and area figures from The World Factbook (CIA, 2001).The resulting sample includes 23 islands in
the Caribbean, 16 in the Pacific, five in the Indian Ocean, four in the
Atlantic, two in the Mediterranean (Malta and Cyprus) and Bahrain in the
Persian Gulf.Three have slightly more
than one million inhabitants (Hawaii, Mauritius, and Trinidad), and all are
less than 20,000 Km2 in area except Iceland and Solomons.

3.RESULTS

Table
1 presents the basic data, and Table 2 records the three impact variables,
their standardized indices and their combined TPI scores and destination
ranking.The overall TPI scores were
calculated as a simple unweighted average of the three standardized
indices.This was based on the
assumption that each type of separate impact--economic, social,
environmental--was as important as the other two in contributing to overall
tourism penetration.The TPI scores
yield results that broadly confirm what is expected.The 51 islands are loosely ranked from most (St. Maarten) to
least developed (Comoros).The more
traditional, developed, and accessible Caribbean, Mediterranean, and Northern
Pacific destinations populate the top half of the rankings while the more
isolated, and recently emerging South Pacific and Indian Ocean destinations
dominate the bottom half.The sample divides
roughly into three distinct groups based on discrete levels of development as
revealed by the TPI: most developed, intermediate, and least developed.

(Tables
1 and 2 here)

The
most developed islands form a subgroup of 13 internationally visible
highly developed destinations characterized by average per capita visitor
spending approaching $10,000 and an average daily visitor density over 170
tourists per 1,000 residents.Tourists
thus represent the rough equivalent of a 17 percent increase in the daily
population.Their insular landscapes
are crowded on average with nearly 25 hotel rooms per km2 of area.This group includes: six traditional
Caribbean resorts (Aruba, British Virgins, Caymans, St. Maarten, Turks/Caicos,
and US Virgins) plus Bermuda, three Northern Pacific resort islands (Guam,
Marianas, Hawaii), Malta, and two small Dutch Antilles (Saba, St. Eustatius)
known for their dive tourism.

As
a group these most developed destinations share a relatively unique
profile.According to the literature
(McElroy and de Albuquerque, 1992), these mature, affluent areas advancing to
the top of the resort cycle are characterized by high visitor and hotel room
densities but relatively slow visitor and room growth rates.Their market is by and large dominated by
shorter-staying visitors (6.2 nights average) with a strong preference for
hotels, large-scale (comfortable) facilities, and man-made attractions.They also exhibit the highest levels of
hotel occupancy, promotional spending, and (for the Caribbean) cruise passenger
traffic.As a partial indicator of
their integration into the global tourist economy, they tend to display the
lowest degree of seasonality through special year-round packages (honeymoon
weekends, conventions, carnivals, regattas, etc…) They also tend to exhibit a
relatively high degree of man-made attractions (casinos, golf courses,
conventioneering etc.).Many of these
older established destinations are also among the most frequently cited in the
literature for tourism-induced ecosystem damage, marine pollution, over-crowding,
host tensions, and declining vacation quality (Jenner and Smith, 1993).

The
least developed islands contain 16 primarily Pacific and Indian Ocean
islands located at the low end or beginning stage of the resort cycle.For example, as a group they average $231 in
per capita visitor spending, i.e. less than three percent of the most developed
islands’ level.Likewise, they average
only 8 visitors per 1,000 population and roughly one room per km2 of land area.They divide unevenly into two
subgroups.At the bottom are remote
South Pacific outposts like the Solomons, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Tonga, and
Samoa and include the Marshalls, Cape Verde, Sao Tome/Principe, Comoros and
Trinidad.These are emerging destinations
with cultures and ecosystems relatively intact.At the higher end is a subgroup of islands with a couple of
decades of successful tourism growth: Mauritius, Reunion, New Caledonia, Fiji,
and Iceland.They are moving toward the
intermediate range of tourism impact.

As
a group, these destinations are characterized by relatively pristine natural
and cultural amenities, small-scale facilities and infrastructure (some lack
jetports), and limited visitor, hotel and population growth.They tend to be large in both population
size and area; and in terms of economic structure, they are the most dependent
on agriculture and the least anchored to tourism.They spend the least on promotion, have the lowest proportion of
international (100+ rooms) hotels, the highest ratio of regional (inter-island)
visitors, and their average length of visitor stay is the longest, 10
nights.These islands have the best
planning potential for developing ecotourism and other sustainable tourism
styles based on low-density consumption of their unique natural and cultural
assets.

The
intermediate destinations are the most dynamic and heterogeneous.As a group their average TPI scores fall
cleanly between the most and least developed.For example, average per capita visitor spending is approximately
$2,000, average daily density is 55 visitors per 1,000 population, and average
room per km2 is six.In most cases,
these islands are characterized by very rapid visitor growth and hotel and
infrastructure construction.In
contrast to the most developed destinations, they tend to have higher rates of
seasonality and lower levels of promotional spending and cruise ship traffic.

The
22 intermediate islands fall into three rough subgroups.At the high end are six highly developed
destinations with significant tourism experience that include five Caribbean
resorts (Anguilla, Antigua, Bahamas, Barbados, Bonaire) and Cyprus.Anguilla and Antigua may graduate to most
developed status over the next two decades.Bahamas, in fact, should be there already because of the concentration
of high-density visitation in the Freeport-Nassau complex, but the intermediate
TPI score results from the archipelago’s large land area and the low level of
tourism development across the outer so-called “Family Islands.”

In
the middle are 12 destinations distinguished by their relatively diversified
economies and steady tourism growth.These include six Caribbean islands (Curacao, Grenada, Guadeloupe,
Martinique, St. Kitts, St. Lucia), two Indian Ocean islands (Maldives and
Seychelles), Cooks, French Polynesia, and Palau in the Pacific, and
Bahrain.Many of these islands are
experiencing noticeable change and resource-use conflicts as labor and capital
migrate from traditional pursuits to tourism.Some are also experiencing the migration transition (immigration) to
service the labor-intensive demands of expanding tourism.However, the moderate rate of change affords
opportunity for anticipatory planning.In fact, Maldives and Seychelles are noted for long-range planning to
control the pace of growth (Innskeep, 1994).

Finally, four
islands occupy the bottom end of the intermediate scale.They include two agriculturally diversified
Caribbean destinations--Dominica and St. Vincent--that have recently graduated
from the least developed group.They also
include tiny Niue in the Pacific and Montserrat.A popular North American retirement haven since the 1960’s,
Montserrat’s TPI ranking has declined because of a devastating volcanic
eruption in 1995 that rendered over half of the island uninhabitable.

4.LIFE CYCLE IMPLICATIONS

Thus
the TPI in broadbrush presents a global picture of tourist development in small
islands across the world.It provides
policy-makers with an indirect early warning signal or assessment of roughly
where each destination is positioned along the economic-environment
continuum.With Butler’s (1980) life
cycle model as a backdrop, the TPI results also suggest some of the key
planning challenges, at least in general terms, that surface along the tourism
development cycle.

For
the most developed destinations, for example, the key task is to sustain
vacation quality.This will require at
least three major policy directions: (1) restoring environmental damage and
curbing further incursions into fragile areas; (2) managing visitor densities
less intrusively by dispersal through time and space; (3) and expanding length
of stay and visitor quality by developing smaller-scale specialty alternatives
to mass tourism: heritage, scientific, nature, retirement, village and so on.Bermuda represents such a success story
(McElroy, 2001).Serious consideration
should also be given to raising attraction access fees, which both limit
visitor numbers and secure funds for ecosystem maintenance (Lindberg, 1991).

The
key challenge facing many intermediate destinations is controlling the quantity
and quality of growth.During this
phase of increasing integration with the global tourist economy, stage II
islands must attempt to constrain the natural propensities of international
air, hotel and cruise interests for large-scale facilities and high-volume
visitation so that these growth imperatives do not exceed the insular economic
(labor, utilities, etc.) and socio-environmental absorptive capacities.This will require at least three major
initiatives: (1) preventing further encroachment on renewable resource uses
(agriculture, fisheries); (2) sequencing large developments in stages over long
horizons; and (3) engaging residents not only in participatory decision-making,
but also providing them with a stronger financial stake in the industry.This last can be accomplished by tax and
other incentives for small-scale, local labor-intensive enterprises and for
local purchases by hoteliers/restaurateurs/developers.The case of Seychelles represents a good
illustration of such tourism localization (Shah, 2002).Targeting inter-island regional tourists is
also warranted since such visitors support smaller-scale local service
suppliers and “tend to travel to more geographically dispersed areas of the
destination country, thereby facilitating wider distribution of the income from
tourism” (Sinclair and Voker, 1993: 213).

For
the least developed destinations, the key challenge is to establish
international visibility.Ideally, this
requires a major community-wide planning effort to achieve three things: (1) to
identify the islands’ unique assets/attractions, (2) to construct the transport
and facility infrastructure for sustainably accessing these assets, and (3) to
determine a destination identity compatible with the native natural and
cultural “genius of the place.”This is
a formidable task, but fortunately these islands have ample policy room to
maneuver because of their early position in the resort cycle.They have sufficient time to develop a
tourism style that is socially acceptable, environmentally compatible and
economically viable, and there are a number of successful models of integrated
planning available (for Maldives and Prince Edward Island, see Manning and
Dougherty, 1999).

5.CONCLUSIONS

This
analysis applied the Tourism Penetration Index to 51 small islands across the
world to indirectly assess tourism’s overall pressure on fragile insular
societies and ecosystems.It further
identified the major planning challenges at each stage of the resort cycle:
establishing visibility, controlling growth and sustaining quality.As a first approximation, however, the TPI
suffers from several limitations.First, it does not measure geographic concentration, a particularly
important dimension for islands where mass sunlust tourism is clustered along
the seashore.Likewise, it does not
account for dualistic development especially in large archipelagic states like
Bahamas.

Second,
it does not measure seasonal visitation like the excessive summer densities in
Mediterranean destinations like the Balearics and Malta.Third, it does not measure a destination’s
long-term experience with tourism.This
omission may down-rank some long-standing traditional destinations like
Barbados.Fourth, as a land-based indicator
(rooms per km2), the TPI may up-rank certain islands like the British Virgins
that cater to dominantly sea-based yachting tourism.To address these and other deficiencies, further research
including developing seasonal and other measures is warranted to improve the
TPI’s performance and reliability.

Finally,
another potentially promising avenue for further research concerns the
influence of political status, i.e. the character of jurisdiction, on island
tourism development.Although
non-sovereign jurisdictions make up 45 percent (23/51) of the total sample in
this study, they are markedly over-represented among the most tourism developed
and clearly under-represented among the least penetrated.To illustrate, 12 of the 13 most developed
destinations with the highest TPI scores are non-sovereign dependencies or
states (Hawaii), while on two of the 16 least tourist-penetrated are
dependencies (New Caledonia and Reunion).Such evidence though impressionistic suggests that non-sovereign
political status may confer particular advantages for tourism growth.These could include geographic proximity to
and ease of travel (no passports, same currency) from major mother country
origin markets, ready access to investment capital and aid-financed transport and
communications infrastructure, special tax and duty-free concessions for
gift/liquor purchases as well as other favorable advantages that deserve
further examination.

REFERENCES

Baldacchino, G. & Milne, D.(2000).Lessons from
the Political Economy of Small

Islands: The
Resourcefulness of Jurisdiction.New York, USA: St. Martin’s Press.